The Yankees 2015 Grapefruit League schedule opens today against the Phillies at Bright House field, with Adam Warren taking the hill to start things. He won’t be out there very long, obviously. But if you’re looking for baseball, this is the best you’re going to get in early March.

Obviously, you’re looking at four players starting today — Pirela, Roller, Galvez and Noonan — who it’s fair to say are likely to open the season with the RailRiders. Also, there are a slew of others making the trip who are going to get some innings as backups. They are:

That’s clearly a boatload of potential RailRiders heading across the Courtney Campbell Causeway to Clearwater. Today’s game is going to be televised on the Phillies network, Comcast Philly. Or, you can follow along on MLB.tv.

Either way, I will have a rundown of today’s action when it comes to the potential RailRiders after the game.

As I type this, the Yankees are in Tampa, literally playing an intrasquad game in which a pitching machine is being used to face the hitters. That’s how far away it seems like we are from baseball games that really matter.

But the RailRiders will open the season in 38 days. While it’s certainly too early to call this anything more than an educated guess as to what the RailRiders will look like that day against Syracuse, it’s fair to say it’s a pretty good blueprint. (After all, in three previous years doing this feature on the blog, I’ve never come close to getting half the roster incorrect on my initial attempt.)

So, maybe your 2015 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders won’t look exactly like this, but it’s fair to say they will like somewhat like this:

Zach Nuding was up and down last season in his time with the RailRiders. He’s looking for a third chance to stick in 2015. Times-Tribune photo by Jason Farmer.

There are questions here. Let there be no doubt about that.

You get the feeling the Yankees would have been pleased to see guys like Zach Nuding, Joel De La Cruz and Matt Tracy get their first chances at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, run with the opportunity and hide with the jobs. It didn’t work out that way, though. They each had very bright moments triumphed by very shaky ones.

Nuding had a 5.07 ERA and 1.59 WHIP, and that’s including an OK August when he pitched to a 3.52 ERA in six outings. Tracy was the steadiest of the three, but he surrendered a lot of baserunners (1.52 WHIP) and gave up four runs or more in four of his last six games. De La Cruz started quickly, but in his last 13 appearances, he had a 6.00 ERA and the IL hit .320 against him.

So, the Yankees got some veteran free agents to compete for work in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and there are some contenders who were solid at Double-A last season who could fit in as well. While this is hardly the deepest position in the organization right now, it does have the most intriguing name in the system knocking at the door of PNC Field.

Jose Pirela may have to give Triple-A another try before looking toward another role in the big leagues in 2015. Times-Tribune photo by Butch Comegys.

If there’s one position that looks drastically different in the RailRiders’ competition for roster spots this season, it’s around the infield. Last season, the RailRiders opened the season with Russ Canzler at first base, Jose Pirela at second, Zelous Wheeler at shortstop and Scott Sizemore at third. Corban Joseph got some at-bats as the season went on. So did Carmen Angelini and Ronnier Mustelier and Dean Anna.

Of them, only Pirela is still in the system, and there’s a shot — albeit an outside one at this point — he could start the season in the big leagues.

What the Yankees appear to be doing in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre outfield this season, they did in the infield last season. They took some young guys and threw them into the fire. Rob Refsnyder excelled. Kyle Roller continued to show prodigious power, even in a bigger park and facing tougher pitching. Rob Segedin even got up to play some third base.

This season, those are about the only names on the list Scranton/Wilkes-Barre fans will have seen play at PNC Field. This time, the veterans that always seem to round out the roster here are completely different names, and the prospects that seemed a few steps away a year ago are now knocking on the door.

What I’m predicting the infield looks like in April almost certainly isn’t what it will look like in August.

Danny Burawa’s first season with the RailRiders saw him dominate at times and struggle at others. Will that earn him a return trip in 2015? Times-Tribune photo by Jason Farmer.

So, the Yankees by my unofficial count have about 100 potential relievers in big league camp. This is always a crowded position, of course, and even with the big league team, it seems like there are one or two spots open for competition in camp. It’s easily the most difficult position to predict for the Triple-A roster for that reason.

The Yankees hit this position hard on the minor-league free-agent circuit this offseason, even though there are plenty of pretty solid, younger options available, and most of them already have Triple-A experience. If there’s a strength, on paper, of the RailRiders this season, it’s the bullpen. And that’s even before we’ve started to pare down who might be on the roster and who might be left out in the cold.

Taylor Dugas had an impressive first season in Triple-A in 2014. The RailRiders should be able to count on him again in 2015. Times-Tribune photo by Jason Farmer.

The Yankees don’t have anybody you’d consider a big-time prospect — at least, nobody who is a big-time prospect anymore — fighting for a job in Triple-A this season. The days when guys like Tyler Austin and Ramon Flores and Slade Heathcott were considered the future of the New York outfielder are certainly fading further into the future now. When the 2015 season opens on April 9, it’s not likely anybody around the IL is going to be talking about the RailRiders outfield as one of the league’s best.

But there is plenty of reason for excitement here.

Depending on how this shakes out, the RailRiders could be looking at the youngest group it has had in the outfield in maybe a decade. And while none of these players are going to appear high on prospects lists, they’ve all got plenty of positives surrounding them, too. It promises to be a boom or bust season for the RailRiders in the outfield, but rest assured, the potential for the boom is maybe more present than you’d think.

John Ryan Murphy likely will be staring up at Michael Pineda on the big league mound this year. Times-Tribune photo by Jake Danna Stevens

My wife, who is from California and surprisingly doesn’t just keel over when she steps outside in the morning to head to work on days like today, sent me a picture of the thermometer in the truck yesterday. It read minus-11 degrees. My backyard is frozen over. The vet we take our Labrador Retriever to asked us nicely not to let her run in the backyard anymore, because everything is so frozen over that she is seeing plenty of bigger dogs come into the office with blown out knees suffered when they trample over a soft spot in the snow.* My Prius is getting 25 mpg because of the cold. My 2-year-old son refuses to leave the house without a hat and mittens. Whenever I hear a creak in the house somewhere, I’m sure it’s every pipe running through the garage about to burst.

*I did not know dogs could tear ACLs, by the way. But evidently, that is the case.

But hey, I just saw a squirrel on the back porch and some birds flying toward the feeders this morning. I guess that’s close enough to spring to determine who will be catching for the RailRiders this season.

By now, you know we do this every year here on the blog. For the next week or so, we’ll go through a position-by-position breakdown of the most likely candidates for the RailRiders’ roster, we’ll settle on a 25-man roster and we’ll all have a good laugh come April when it’s either dead on (as it practically was in 2013), or not quite something you’d consider close (like last year). I’ll give you what amounts to the same disclaimer as I give every year: Things change so drastically in the camps, and so many things that seem extremely minute can affect an opening day roster, that even getting close to the actual roster is difficult. But what’s not difficult is figuring out how the Yankees may want this to turn out. And that’s what we’ll be focusing on.

Today, we start with the catchers, because I was a catcher in my day and I favor catchers.

*I’m not counting the one-year absence of the RailRiders in 2012 as an interruption. There was no chance the team wasn’t coming back. It was purely a stadium reno.

All that said, plenty of teams have been in these cities longer, either in Double-A or leagues lower. For example, Pawtucket had a Double-A team from 1970-72 that was sold and moved out. Charlotte has had a team since the mid-1970s. Durham, obviously, has had professional baseball forever, dating back to 1902. So, when you’re talking about cities that have had baseball uninterrupted for generations now, you’re talking about most of the league. Teams like Lehigh Valley and Gwinnett are now the newbies. Even at 26 years in existence, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre remains one of the youngest franchises, all in all, in the IL.

This story is developing quickly, so I’ll try to keep you up to date as best I can. But the Red Sox have been owned since the early 1970s by the Mondor family, which has evidently sold the franchise to a group that wants to move the team about six miles south of Pawtucket, to Providence.

Clearly, Pawtucket fans are not out in the cold here. They can drive a few extra minutes and attend as many games as they did before. But minor league baseball has long been about communities like Pawtucket, and as its mayor Donald Grenien told the Associated Press, losing the franchise even six miles south is “devastating” to the people of Pawtucket.

There aren’t a lot of details out yet, but here’s guessing the new ownership group didn’t want to throw in the funds to renovate aging McCoy Stadium — which opened in the 1940s — to the level most of the newer parks are today. McCoy is one of the jewels of the IL, but it’s an old-time park. When my grandfather used to tell me about the old Scranton Stadium where the Scranton Red Sox played in the 1940s and 1950s, what he described was exactly what I remember seeing when I saw McCoy for the first time back in 2002. A classic, old park in the middle of a town that the people there treated with pride. I’ve covered a few games there over the years. It’s certainly quite different than anywhere else you’re going to go on the IL circuit. Sure, the team is moving a few miles away, and fans are going to have to deal with not having a minor league team literally in their backyard anymore. But the real loss here is that, at some point likely soon — if the plan goes through — there won’t be IL baseball played at McCoy Stadium anymore. Quite a shame.

This is why, a few years back when I said a $40 million-some renovation at PNC Field was probably worth doing, I thought anybody who was against it was more than a little short-sighted. Guaranteed, if PNC Field was still standing today as it stood in 2011, there wouldn’t be a Triple-A franchise — or likely even a Double-A franchise — playing on Montage Mountain. A new ownership group like the one that just came in likely would have moved the franchise. I honestly believe this, and what’s happening in Pawtucket is further proof. McCoy Stadium had much more history, much more charm, than PNC Field or Lackawanna County Stadium did. If they can leave that place without a team, they can leave any place without a team. Instead, the renovation here was done, and when the franchise was sold, people like David Abrams and David Blitzer and Grant Cagle could come in here and never dream of moving the franchise when it would be so difficult to come up with something better. And if they did leave? Well, you’d have a dozen other franchises — at least — fighting each other off with sticks to get in to PNC Field. It’s so unfortunate that McCoy won’t have the same fate.

UPDATE: Josh Leventhal of Baseball America is reporting that the new ownership has not asked for permission yet to move Pawtucket Red Sox out of its territory.

Regarding @PawSox moving, team has not received permission to look outside of its territory, @MiLB president Pat O'Conner said.

I’m not sure if that’s surprising or not. I’d think not. Nothing is going to change before the 2016 season anyway. But it’s clearly worth noting there’s a long process ahead.
UPDATE: Here’s another story with many more details, courtesy of WPRI.com. The new stadium would be built in Providence and funded by the new ownership group, but they want land from the state free of charge. The hoped-for move would be made at some point within the next three years.

Really, that makes Moncada a $63 million investment for the Red Sox, who have to pay major league baseball a dollar-for-dollar tax since they have exceeded their cap in the international spending pool. The Yankees, who would have been subject to the same tax, offered $27 million to Moncada, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

#Yankees offered $25M with willingness to go to $27M which is same offered Jorge Soler who went to #Cubs for $30M

Young superstars on the international market have procured big money from big league teams the last few seasons, and Moncada was easily the biggest name. Some scouts listed him as a five-tool prospect, and a few of the teams involved in the bidding considered bringing him right to the big leagues.

The big question about him is what position he’ll play. He’s a shortstop right now, but he’s also on the bigger side and expected to grow out of the position. He’ll likely end up at second base or third base, but if he’s really a five-star player*, he can also play the outfield spots too.

*I always wonder about a “five-tool player” who can grow out of a position. My guess is that, at best, Moncada will be a four-star player by the time he stops growing. He might still be able to run well, but at a five-tool pace? Not sure that’s doable.

Moncada worked out for the Yankees at least three times, and maybe it says something that they weren’t willing to go an extra $4.5 million (or $9 million, depending on how you look at it) to sign him. Maybe it just means the Yankees aren’t in the same place as teams like the Red Sox, Dodgers and Cubs are, pursuing elite young talent on the international market at the going rate. The Yankees were interested in players like Yasiel Puig and Jorge Soler and, now, Moncada. And they lost them all. Meanwhile, the farm system — though improving a bit — is still not near ready to help out significantly at the big-league level.

There’s no determining now whether Moncada will be a star. Players bust all the time. But the recent wave of Cubans to the bigs have been really significant impact players, and the Yankees lineup could have used that type of excitement this season. It’s far too early to tell whether the Yankees were being stingy or smart as far as Yoan Moncada goes, but here’s guessing this could impact ticket sales a bit. Fans seemed to be hoping for a bright young star to cheer on this season, and no matter how you slice it, the Yankees won’t willingly open the season with one in the lineup, unless you want to count Didi Gregorius.

Baseball isn't limited to box scores and game stories, and neither is baseball news. Stay in the know with insight, breaking news and other RailRiders nuggets from Times-Tribune beat writer Donnie Collins. He'll check in regularly with transactions, game-day information and more than a few opinions.